AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She did, however, know a little about the far east. About Alaska, and the Bering Strait, and Japan, and it seemed to her that there was something out east between all that.
Aw, it was probably still Siberia—
Except, no, they crossed over the land, and below, she spotted more mountains and what looked like smoke rising from craters to the north.
Volcanoes? Snow capped the mountains that rose as if pushpins across a lush green forest, and carved out of it, a city lay, quiet and expansive, edging a massive bay.
And beyond that, more water.
Wait. That was the Bering Sea.
Which meant—
“Kamchatka. It is beautiful, is it not?”
She looked at Lukka. Nodded.
“And there she is. Sevvostlag. After the great Kolyma camp. Now, she is a floating fortress.”
What?
They’d descended more, and she made out—what, that rusty cargo ship? It floated in the middle of a harbor, two smaller ships attached, one that looked like a passenger tug.
“Wait—are you talking about the ship?”
“Our beautiful floating hotel, for the workers of the Petrov Oil and Gas Company.” He said it in English, with a smile.
“The gulag is on a ship?”
“Not a gulag. We are the new Russia. This is work camp.”
Aka, prison. She stared at the ship. It was an old woman with runny makeup, rusty lines dripping down her sides, the thirteen-story superstructure yellowing, with broken windows and steel rigging hanging rusty and fraying. It looked like it could barely stay afloat, let alone sail the high seas. Containers were lined up on the deck, and a massive ladder led along the side of the boat from the smaller ship beside it.
A massive crane, probably once used to transport containers onto the deck, had been cut off at the top.
She looked broken, despairing, and exactly what Shae might have imagined for a prison ship.
The plane flew over the ship, then banked, straightened out, and landed, the mountains rising to the north, the sea to the south.
And the ship waiting in the harbor.
She couldn’t breathe. Lukka reached forward and unbuckled her. “There’s nowhere to run. So don’t try.”
Right. Yeah, well, don’t hold your breath, Lukka.
Because if anyone could get her off a ship, it was her Navy SEAL.
* * *
Iris never missed a call.It was sort of her hallmark claim to fame as a back judge. No missed calls.
Her career, her reputation, her future as an official in the European League of Football, or even her ticket to the NFL, depended on it. So no, she wasn’t going to let a mouthy American wide receiver with the Vienna Vikings, Hudson Bly, get up in her face.
Even if was a game-changing call.
“Are you blind? That was clear passing interference! The cornerback tripped me—I didn’t even have achanceto catch the ball.”
And yes, he might stand a foot taller than her, but she’d been here, done that with arrogant former arena ball players, and hello, the over-sized wideout, with his Montana-Australian accent, wasn’t going to make her sit down. Or cower.
